


The Immovable Object and the Unopposable Force

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Possessiveness, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:56:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If I possess you," Spock says, considering every word before he utters it, "I will possess all of you. Jim..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Immovable Object and the Unopposable Force

The first time is the worst – Spock is barely in the corridor before Yeoman Andrews is knocking on Kirk's door. She has a heart-shaped face framed with blonde curls, and Kirk has been quite obviously lusting after her for a week. The fact that he must have penciled her into his schedule, having allotted an hour of his time to Spock, stings.   
  
Spock stands there in the corridor as the door slides shut behind her.  
  
He looks disheveled – he knows it – and he bends down to adjust his clothing, fixing his hems and pulling on his boots. He can calculate the equations for warp speed and the frequencies for transporter beams in his sleep, but for now he gives this one task his full attention. He can hear Kirk's voice through the cabin door, the same low seductive tone that the captain has used on all of the conquests that Spock has observed. The same tone that the captain used on Spock.  
  
A human wouldn't have been able to hear it, and the captain, who knows how sensitive Spock's ears are to faint sounds, doubtless thinks that he has already left. It would have been the decent thing – the logical thing – to do.  
  
For a moment, Spock has the uncharitable idea that Kirk is abusing the medication that McCoy gave him for erectile dysfunction after his encounter with an Orion spy on their last shore leave, but he dismisses the idea. Kirk has never been above entertaining two lovers in a single night, and it's unlikely that he would have resorted to using the medication for this.  
  
Andrews hadn't even looked at Spock when she passed him.  
  
\-------  
  
The proposal had been entirely unexpected. Kirk, with his head propped on his elbow, was studying the chessboard from an unconventional point of view – that was what he'd said when Spock had accused him of napping.  
  
That was what he'd said before he'd opened his eyes and made a move that destroyed all of Spock's careful strategies. It would be mate in seven, if Spock wasn't careful.  
  
"What exactly are you proposing?" he asked, studying Kirk over his mug of tea. The hot liquid had long since come to room temperature, but Spock made an attempt to drink it, choking down the tepid drink. Holding the mug was something to do with his hands.  
  
"I thought we could … help each other out," Kirk said, making a broad gesture with both hands. "You know, two friends. Who are sometimes … left hard at port. Especially when we aren't at port. So to speak."  
  
He gave Spock a significant glance, but Spock, failing to understand what ports had to do with the unconventional liaison that the captain had proposed, gave him a blank look.   
  
"You know," Kirk said. "It's a five year mission. Things can get … lonely in space."  
  
"The popular concept of space as a vacuum has since been superseded by the realization that it is not in fact empty. While there is nothing like an atmosphere or the density of particles which can be observed on most planets, the amount of microscopic debris –"   
  
"I meant – interpersonally." Kirk fidgeted with one of Spock's captured pieces. "If you ever wanted to do something other than scan space for microscopic debris. What I mean to say is that I – Uhura told me that the two of you split, and I thought that you and I – when we're feeling a little lonely, we could … come to each other. If that was what you wanted."  
  
Spock had, in the past, heard Dr. McCoy use a colorful aphorism which described the location of his heart as being in his throat – and while Spock felt that, evolutionarily speaking, it might be a wise decision for a species to consolidate the windpipe and the heart, both vulnerable places, into one location, the fact remained that no species had as yet done so, rendering the statement ridiculous.   
  
On further consideration, the advantage gained by placing the two vulnerable features in one spot and thus presenting fewer weaknesses to enemies, would likely be outweighed by the increased strain on the heart that would be occasioned from having to pump deoxygenated blood a greater distance to the lungs.   
  
Spock, nonetheless, felt that his heart was in his throat at that moment. He considered the sensation and swallowed, studying the captain carefully. "Are you suggesting that the two of us should engage in sexual relations?"  
  
Kirk gave him a crooked smile. "Well, yeah. It'd be … logical, right? I mean, our bodies have needs."  
  
"You are referring, I suppose, to the fact that you have not taken a lover in the past twelve point four days," Spock said.   
  
Their rooms shared a connecting bathroom – it wasn't as if Spock could have failed to notice, but nevertheless, Kirk gave Spock a questioning look. "I didn't think you kept track of my lovers."  
  
"You are the captain. It is my duty to monitor both your physical and your mental well-being."  
  
It was his duty to monitor the captain's well-being. It was neither his duty nor his pleasure to monitor _Jim's_ well-being, and Spock tried to be conscientious about observing the difference. However, he had noticed that on the whole, the captain's well-being was dramatically improved when the man had sexual intercourse regularly.   
  
"Well, sure, but that's hardly relevant to ship's business, Spock."  
  
On the contrary, it had been relevant on six missions and two shore leaves, but Spock only raised one eyebrow and looked at the captain instead of mentioning it.   
  
Kirk apparently remembered those instances as well – the tips of his ears flushed pink. "Well, yeah. But this is different … it's not your _duty_ to do this, Spock. I thought … we both might get something out of it, though."  
  
He waggled an eyebrow. "What do you say? Ready to admit that you can't resist me?"  
  
Spock closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and regulated his heart-rate and breathing before he accepted Kirk's proposal. There was no need to show undue emotion – it was an offer to share sexual release on occasion, nothing more.  
  
\-------  
  
The woman Kirk sleeps with on Gatria is not beautiful in the conventional sense, Spock thinks. She is tall and slim, it's true, but her facial features are too asymmetrical for her to meet the classical standard of beauty.   
  
Furthermore, she's clumsy. When Spock meets her it's because she staggers into him, half-drunk already and headed toward the captain's quarters. Spock had seen her dancing with Jim at the reception earlier, their bodies swaying close together – now she's headed down the corridor toward his room, and it's not hard to guess where she's going.   
  
Spock never learned the woman's name. A daughter of one of the minor diplomats, he thinks, or someone's sister. She's wearing a black opera dress and precarious high heels, carrying a bottle of fizzy water and smiling up at Spock.   
  
She's _touching_ him, her fingers on his arm so warm that he can feel them through his shirt. He reaches out and steadies her, catching her when she comes close to falling.   
  
"The captain promised to teach me how to make Terran drinks," she tells him, whispering as if it is a secret. Spock nods, and that seems to be enough of a response, because she detaches herself from him and makes her way down the corridor, swaying.   
  
Spock does not turn to watch her go. Control – he has control over himself. Logic dictates that it must be so.  
  
Logic fails him the next morning, when the captain asks him how quickly the Federation can produce the tonnes of gallium oxide that the planet needs. Spock is caught staring at him, without an answer, unprepared.  
  
Jim's hands, which are just hands and entirely commonplace. The rough skin on the calluses, the elegant articulation of joints and veins, the pulse that can be felt at the wrist, the short-bitten nails. Jim's hands are no different than any man's hands, but it is _these_ hands that pulled Spock into a storage closet yesterday. _This_ is the palm that was pressed over Spock's mouth while Kirk murmured his request – just a little something to take the edge off before negotiations, just a little, please – and _these_ are the fingers that touched Spock, the ones that made him come undone.   
  
These are the hands that held a dance partner and poured drinks and touched the woman in the black dress. These are the hands that made her make the sounds that Spock heard through thin walls in the dark hours of the night, the hours when the peace of meditation was as far away as the moon.   
  
The second time Jim came to Spock, he left him in the storage closet and went to the arms of this woman.   
  
Jim has to repeat the question. Spock shakes his head, catching McCoy staring at him, and he has to turn his attention inward, stopping the flush of blood that wants to rush to the capillaries close to his skin. He will not show the world that Jim has this effect on him.   
  
"Approximately thirteen standard months," Spock says. There are factories on two nearby planets, Denebia and Gildlauren. The supply of raw material and the production rates are known.   
  
It should be an easy answer, calculated to the exact hour, precise and reliable. It should be an answer that Spock has at the tips of his fingers.   
  
He looks down at his hands – his fingers that are thin and almost scrawny, better suited to touch a console than the flesh of another being – different from Jim's hands.   
  
\-------  
  
Spock had thought that when Nyota noticed – which of course she does, and sooner than he'd expected – she would fill the silence after his stuttering explanation with some human platitude, something as insubstantial as spun sugar, the way humans often do. He should have known her better.   
  
She takes him by the elbow and leads him away from the cabin where the captain is having sex with the ambassador's secretary, down the corridor and into the rec room where the officers are playing cards.   
  
"Here," she says, pulling up a chair next to hers and pushing Spock down into it, "show me what _else_ you can do with your hands. They're good for more than pushing buttons on a console, I bet."   
  
At her insistence, they start a new game, dealing Spock in. McCoy grumbles because he was winning, but Nyota looks at him, and he falls silent.   
  
Spock isn't unaware of the exchange or the way that the others look at him. He isn't blind. Nyota puts a hand on his wrist, just below the hem where the end of his sleeve covers his skin, and he jerks his hand away. He can't bear to feel her.   
  
What Spock does feel is _tight_ – as if his skin is stretched too taut over his bones, as if his blood is about to boil in the vacuum that is space – and it takes a long moment to realize that it isn't real, that he's sitting in Rec Room One with a bunch of cards in his hand.   
  
Nyota nudges him, this time touching his shoulder, which is covered by layers of cloth and is safe to touch, safe. It's his turn. McCoy is staring at him, and Chekov and Sulu stare at their cards, both of them careful not to look at him.  
  
When Spock's skin doesn't feel as though it is stretched too tight, it feels like old paper, the kind that flakes away in the wind. This is the skin that James Kirk touched with his hands and his lips. Spock, who does not forget, could recreate the paths that the captain brushed over his skin, every touch in perfect order until the denouement, the moment when the world collapsed on itself like a singularity point, twisting with bright pleasure.  
  
There are three aces among Spock's cards – three times makes a pattern, he realizes, each thought fitting against the next and falling into a logical chain. Each time Kirk has slept with him, he's gone straight to another's bed.   
  
Nyota is still looking at him. Spock puts his cards on the table, face down, and rises. He doesn't know what game they are playing – he doesn't know the rules – and Nyota's insistence that his hands are good for something other than consoles is patently false. Spock can no more play a game of cards than he can touch the captain and keep him.   
  
He touches Nyota on the shoulder before he goes, so that she will know that it's not her fault. She should know that, Spock tells himself, and he lets the thought carry him back to his quarters and down into the deep swells of meditation that rise like the salt sea to cover his mind. He is the son of a desert planet, but Jim is the son of Earth and knows the push and pull of that planet's tides, the deep sea that created life and, capricious, can still destroy it.   
  
\-------  
  
In the end, Spock turns away from the sea and back to the sand – the hot plains and mountains of Vulcan, planet-that-once-was. The mountain where his people had practiced Kolinahr, the city where his father's people had lived. Spock knows the teachings of Surak – it was on Vulcan that he learned, not the colony planet orbiting a new yellow sun. Vulcan.   
  
The alarm is ringing when Spock allows his consciousness to rise up through the sands of his meditation, and Jim Kirk is sitting on his bed. Spock closes his eyes, and then opens them.  
  
The water of all the seas of Earth cannot quench the fire of his meditation. Spock had meditated on the sea and found no logic in it.  
  
"Hey," Kirk says, shifting his weight on the bed. One foot hangs down over the floor, swinging back and forth. "I knocked, but you –"  
  
He stops, waits, and begins again. "Uhura found me," he says. "She's pissed about something. Bones has you on medical leave, for some reason. No one will tell me why. You missed your shift on the bridge, and no one will tell me anything."  
  
"I have been meditating. I am able to perform my duties," Spock says. His legs are stiff, folded underneath him. He doesn't know how many hours he spent in meditation and isn't sure if he cares to know.   
  
"It's been two _days_ ," Kirk says, hopping off the bed and coming closer. He reaches to touch Spock – fingers on his cheekbone, close to the meld points – and Spock recoils. "What are you –"  
  
Kneeling in front of him, Kirk touches him again, puts both hands on Spock's knees. He leans in close enough for a kiss. "Hey," he says again, his voice deep and seductive now. "Hey. Why don't we … make things better?"  
  
Spock shakes his head, and the captain has moved before he can blink, is standing all the way across the room. Spock has never rejected him before.  
  
He has felt Kirk's hands on his bare skin, through the weight of his clothing. If Spock were to be swaddled in fabric and thick layers of cotton down, enough feathers to choke his breath and burden him beyond moving, he would still remember the touch of Kirk's hands.   
  
"Are you sure you're okay?" Kirk is saying. Spock blinks, and he is still there, persisting, like a vision, like a mirage in the desert. "Do you need to go to Sickbay?"  
  
Spock shakes his head again, and Kirk is leaving – looking back at him – gone.   
  
\-------  
  
The Ambassador of Mathenia has noticed Kirk's obsession with his secretary, and he gives Spock a wry look at breakfast, when the captain is busy flirting and Spock is trying to look at something other than his sectioned peach. He has cut it open, exposing the red, structured flesh that protected the pit at its heart. The food synthesizer did an excellent job of mimicking each detail – the fine-grained fuzz on the skin of the fruit, the smell and the taste.   
  
Spock, fresh from meditation, forces himself to eat. His body needs nourishment.   
  
He licks the juice off his lips when Kirk is leaning across the table to pour milk into the secretary's tea, not looking at him. The ambassador is the only one who notices, and he watches Spock while he eats.   
  
They collide in the corridor after the meal, Spock turning toward the bridge and the ambassador heading in the direction of his quarters. Spock reels back from touching him – the sudden contact of flesh to flesh is enough to unsettle him. He needs to meditate – and the ambassador steadies him, both hands on his shoulders.   
  
He looks up into Spock's face. "Could I have a word with you, Commander Spock?"  
  
"Certainly."  
  
The ambassador leads him down the corridor. "I don't want to take you away from your duties, but if you don't mind, I'd rather we discussed this in private…"  
  
"Of course." Spock cuts him off before he can make the turn toward guest quarters, and guides him to a small conference room. "Is this suitable, Ambassador?"  
  
"Please, call me Kli-Atyl."  
  
"As you wish." Spock stands at attention, his hands clasped behind his back, and waits.   
  
The ambassador is standing close to Spock. One of the first things that Spock was required to teach his students at the Academy was that different species, different cultures have their own standards for personal space. He led a seminar on it, familiarizing his students with the different standards that each major culture had, forcing them to be comfortable with speaking to other beings, even when they are perceived as being too distant – or too close.  
  
The Mathenite ambassador's people do not generally favor close personal contact, but Spock will not cause a diplomatic incident by being rude. "How may I be of assistance, Ambassador?"  
  
He reaches out to touch Spock on the shoulder, seems to think better of it, and stops. "I had noticed ... that your captain is taking a particular interest in my secretary Myaning-Lau. Is it permitted for me to ask whether this is acceptable?"  
  
The ambassador's speech is slow and careful, and he gives Spock a significant look. Spock blinks.  
  
"There are no Starfleet regulations prohibiting such a relationship, if it is conducted with appropriate propriety and regards for the wishes of both beings in question," he says. "Is it permitted for me to ask whether such a relationship is acceptable in your culture?"  
  
The ambassador smiles, and his eyes gleam as he takes a step closer to Spock. "Indeed, such a relationship is acceptable – is very welcome to us," he says.  
  
"I can assure you," Spock hurries to say, "that I am sure that the captain's intentions toward your secretary are –"  
  
The door to the conference room opens abruptly, and Kirk sticks his head in the room. "Commander Spock –"  
  
He stops in the doorway, and looks from the ambassador to Spock and back again. "I see," he says. "Sorry if I interrupted anything."   
  
He gives Spock a look that is hard to interpret, and then leaves the room. The door slides closed behind him, and Spock stares at the door for a long moment..  
  
Ambassador Kli-Atyl puts a hand on Spock's wrist, stopping him when he starts to follow the captain. The pressure of his fingers through the sleeve of Spock's uniform is not unpleasant – is not enough to truly stop him – but Spock brushes him away. "Forgive me, Ambassador," he says. "Alpha shift will start soon, and I will be needed on the bridge ... and before that, I must ascertain what the captain needed. He would not have come in search of me if I was not required-"  
  
"I see," the ambassador says, letting his hand fall to his side. "Go, then, if you are needed. Perhaps we can continue this conversation at another time."  
  
"I would be amenable to that," Spock says, bowing before taking his leave. "Thank you, Ambassador."  
  
\-------  
  
The captain is not present on the bridge when Spock arrives. He is nearly late for alpha shift, himself; he had gone to the captain's quarters, the observation deck that he frequents, and the main dining hall, but the captain had been in none of the places where Spock usually finds him.   
  
When Kirk finally comes to the bridge, he is more than fifteen minutes late for his shift: seventeen point two six minutes, to be precise. Spock does not comment on his tardiness. Instead, he relinquishes the conn to the captain and takes his own place.  
  
The morning is quiet, as the space stretched between the stars goes past. Spock, thinking of this – of the incredible dilation of time and space, the relativistic equations that affect the passage of their shift – is reminded of his unsuccessful meditation in his quarters, the feeling he had of being stretched too thin.  
  
He is Vulcan – he is a child of the desert planet, though that planet is no more – he is no mutable child of Terra. He focuses on his work, looking down at his console and away from the captain's blue eyes. Like sand and sun and heat, logic anchors him, and he will stop thinking of what is past.  
  
He rejected the captain's advances. It is unlikely that they will be repeated, unlikely that Spock will have another chance to touch Jim's skin, feel his breath, or see his face when he–  
  
"Commander Spock," Captain Kirk says.  
  
"Yes, Captain?"  
  
"You have the conn. I'll be speaking with Ambassador Kli-Atyl about our upcoming mission."  
  
Their mission is to Lambda Menali, a planet that has trade goods and medical knowledge that the Mathenites need. Kirk hates it. He hates having the Enterprise used as a dog-and-pony show, as he puts it in his own colorful idiom, to ferry diplomats around the galaxy.   
  
The subtle web of interstellar politics and commerce are not to his taste – Kirk would rather be fighting for justice or discovering new planets. Spock has served with him for long enough to know that, and so when he has been silent and sullen – as he has been this shift – Spock assumes that it is due to his dislike of their mission.  
  
The rest of the bridge crew must have sensed it as well. They all go silently about their tasks, keeping the ship running at peak efficiency. Spock catches Nyota watching him, sometimes, but they are in sparsely-settled space and there are few transmissions for her to intercept and translate. He nods at her, once, when he catches her staring for long minutes, and she turns her attention back to her console.  
  
She catches up with him when he's leaving the bridge after their shift, having relinquished the helm to the senior lieutenant on beta shift. She puts a hand on his arm, standing close to him in the turbolift.   
  
"Nyota," he says – the word feels hard and thick on his tongue. He does not know what to say to her. He looks down at her hand, instead, and covers it with his own for a brief second.  
  
Skin on skin – he has only a brief glimpse of emotions, just as if he were to have a second to glance into a crowded room. She is angry, he knows, and upset about something. It is intense, enough to shake Spock's shields, and he takes a step away from her.   
  
"I must meditate," he says.   
  
"Spock," she says. "I want you to know –"  
  
He pauses, although the turbolift has arrived at their destination and the doors are waiting, open.   
  
She shakes her head. "Never mind. I … I'm sorry."  
  
Nyota looks back at him when she's half-way down the corridor, and there's something in her expression that Spock can't read. She nods at him, and straightens her spine, going on her way as though she means business.   
  
Spock forces himself to move, to go to his quarters and meditate. He will overcome his weakness.  
  
\-------  
  
Spock is eating dinner with the Mathenite Ambassador in the dining hall when Kirk finally reappears, striding into the room and stopping in front of their table. The hollow sounds that his boots have made on the metal deck fade away and die to nothing, and Spock looks up at him.  
  
"Commander Spock," Kirk says. The expression on his face is closed-off and hard for Spock to read, but the tone of his voice is not – the captain is upset about something. One might even say that he is angry.   
  
"Yes, Captain?"  
  
"I'd like to have a word with you, Commander."  
  
Spock puts his fork beside his plate and, removing his fingers from the Mathenite ambassador's grasp, he stands. "I am at your disposal, Captain."  
  
He follows Kirk out of the room, and catches Nyota's eye as he leaves. She purses her lips together, shaking her head, but her message is ambiguous and none of the other crew give Spock any signs that he can interpret. He is at a loss to understand the captain's behavior, his disappearance from alpha shift and his sudden anger, but Spock follows him nonetheless, his footsteps silent in the wake of the captain's loud strides.  
  
They go to the nearest empty room – the same conference room that Spock had used when he had spoken with the ambassador, earlier that morning. Kirk's lips thin to a line and he gestures for Spock to enter the room first.  
  
"What exactly do you think you're doing, Commander Spock?" He enters and advances on Spock, coming close enough to invade his personal space, before the door has slid shut.  
  
Spock does not retreat. Instead, he stills his mind, he calms himself with the equations that describe the concentration of oxygen in his blood, the vectors by which oxygen molecules are expelled from his mouth with every breath, the rhythm of his heartbeat and the energetic demands of his body. He needs air, just as all living creatures do – he does not need Kirk.  
  
"I fail to understand your meaning, Captain," he says when he is calm. "I am at your disposal to have the conversation which you indicated you wished to have with me in the dining hall, but that is all that I am doing at the present time."  
  
"Don't pretend you don't understand me," Kirk says, taking another step toward Spock. "What do you think you're doing with the Ambassador from Mathenia?"  
  
"We were consuming the evening meal together, Captain. As I was the ranking officer present in the dining hall, and he is a dignitary being transported on his ship with all the honor due to his office as an Ambassador, I felt it only prudent to –"  
  
Kirk interrupts him, cutting him off with a slash of his hand through the air. "He was touching you. He was holding your hand, for Christ's sake, you can't tell me that that's professional or necessary in the course of duty or whatever the hell you want to call it..."  
  
"He wished to illustrate a point, Captain. I assure you that there was nothing unprofessional about his actions."  
  
Many human cultures ascribe meaning to the simple gesture of hand-holding – on Mathenia, it means nothing more than what it is, what it was when the ambassador used it, illustrating the way another delegate had approached him to discuss the signing of a treaty at a recent convention. Humans from Jim Kirk's culture are accustomed to shaking hands, to holding hands on dates, to gesturing with their hands – they say more with their hands than they do with their speech, sometimes. Spock has been ill-accustomed to such profligacy, but he has spent years on Earth and he has learned to deal with it.  
  
"Different cultures ascribe different meanings to the gesture, Captain. I assure you, on Mathenia Prime, there is nothing unprofessional about –"  
  
"Don't fucking give me that," Kirk says. He speaks with his hands, as humans do. His are clenched into fists at his sides, betraying his anger more surely than his flushed face does. "Don't try to tell me that – I _saw_ the two of you together this morning, canoodling in here."  
  
"Canoodling, Captain? I am not familiar with that word."  
  
"And don't try to tell me that it meant nothing to you," Kirk says. "I know that hand-holding means a damned lot of _something_ to Vulcans ... don't forget that I met your other self, and he's a hell of a lot more communicative and helpful than you are."  
  
Spock does not understand – he catches Kirk's gaze for a moment and holds it, but it isn't enough to calm his anger. "I regret that you do not find me to be adequately communicative and helpful, Captain. I shall endeavour to be –"  
  
Kirk cuts him off with another wave of his hand and stares at him for a moment longer before he turns on his heel, leaving as abruptly as he appeared in the dining hall.  
  
\-------  
  
No amount of persuasion will convince Kirk that Spock has no amorous intentions toward the ambassador from Mathenia, and once he has latched onto the idea, he brings it up at every possible moment.   
  
There are in fact many possible moments, when all of the variables are taken into account – the enclosed nature of the starship, the proximity of their quarters, the fact that Spock and Kirk work together on the bridge for eight-hour shifts every day – and by the third time Kirk mentions it, Spock has had enough.  
  
He stands, after saving his work on his console. "If I might have a word with you in private, Captain?"  
  
Kirk has just made a pointed comment about Spock's propensity for spending time with ambassadors – one that could have been interpreted to refer to Spock's father, Ambassador Kli-Atyl, or any other ambassador in the Federation, Spock supposes. The ambiguity of Kirk's comment may or may not be the reason that the bridge crew have been giving them both wary looks during the exchanges.  
  
"Fine," Kirk says, closing his mouth on what must have been the punchline of his comment. "In my ready room, Mr. Spock."  
  
When they are alone together, Spock closes his eyes and thinks of the other times they have been alone together – the feel of Kirk in his arms, the taste of him on his tongue. It can be no more.   
  
What is, is. Spock opens his eyes and regards the captain steadily. "Captain Kirk, I feel obliged to inform you that, in spite of the fact that I have engaged in no liaisons of a romantic or physical nature with the Mathenite Ambassador, your behavior toward him and towards myself has been unaccountably hostile. From this, I can conclude only that the physical liaisons between the two of us are detrimental to our duty as Starfleet officers, and thus should be –"  
  
"Don't say that." Kirk isn't looking at him. His back turned, he appears to be studying the starmaps spread out on the wall and paying no particular attention to Spock's words. "Don't say that," he says again.   
  
"I fail to understand the logic of your comment, given the cogent arguments which I have presented –"  
"Fuck that." Kirk turns to face him at last. "Fuck logic. Spock, the thought of you with him –"  
  
Kirk's body language is tense and his fists are clenched. The last time Spock saw him this upset, he was trying to persuade him to take the Enterprise to Earth instead of the Laurentian system.   
  
There is logic, there is only and ever logic, the rock under the shifting sands of Vulcan that was, Vulcan that ever will be his home.   
  
There is only Captain Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise – there is no man named Jim, who made soft sounds and touched Spock's face as if each touch was something precious.  
  
With his mindset fixed, Spock raises an eyebrow, looking straight at the captain. "You cannot claim that there is any true objective in the pursuit of a liaison between the two of us, Captain. At its outset, you expressed it as a need for physical release between two officers who were presented with a limited set of opportunities during the exigencies of an exploratory mission in space. In fact, I have observed that you have found opportunities to engage in physical intimacy with other persons in a remarkably short period of time after having coupled with myself. This observation must negate the logic of the initial proposal and thus, Captain –"  
  
His words are cut off when Kirk surges forward, pinning him against the wall with a hand on each of his shoulders. His grip is surprisingly strong, and his fingers dig into Spock's flesh.   
  
"Fuck logic." Kirk kisses him, and it is more of an assault than a kiss, more of a conquering than a courtship. Spock keeps his lips closed and tries to turn his face away, but Kirk holds him there.   
  
"Fuck logic, I said." Kirk says it for the third time, and repetition does not make Spock wish to agree to his premise, but he has at least pulled back and is looking at Spock without the anger that has been clouding his face. "I _need_ you, Spock ... it fucking scares me, but I need you."  
  
Spock reaches up and pulls the captain's hands off his shoulders. He can feel the sore spots where bruises will doubtless form, darkening his skin as these thoughts have darkened his meditations.   
  
"When logically examined, that premise does not appear to be the truth." Spock squares his shoulders and stands at attention. "Permission to be dismissed, Captain? There are some ongoing experiments in the science labs which require my attention."  
  
It is not true, and Vulcans have not been known to lie – but Spock, as he has been told many times, is no true Vulcan. As he had told his accusers at the time, his mixed blood means that he brings no shame upon their race.  
  
\-------  
  
When he meditates, Spock finds himself dwelling on Vulcan at night – the cold that comes over the desert and the wind that blows over the sands. Nyota and Doctor McCoy interrupt his meditation, and enter his room before he gives them leave to do so.  
  
He greets them and makes them welcome without irony, in spite of their intrusion. Nyota, he can tell by her expression, is sorry to have interrupted him.   
  
"Look," she says, "we need to talk to you, Spock, about ... what's happened between you and Jim."  
  
To hear his name, spoken casually, when Spock himself had renounced it, is a shock. Nyota normally addresses the captain more formally than that.   
  
"I do not think that there is anything to discuss," he says. "What transpired between the captain and myself is a private matter, and not affecting the running of this ship –"  
  
"Like hell it isn't," McCoy says. He stands with his arms folded over his chest, as belligerent as Spock has ever seen him. "I put you on medical leave at Nyota's insistence, but I can't go around doing that every time you and Jim have a little lover's spat. If you would just –"  
  
"You are mistaken, Doctor. The captain and I are not lovers."  
  
"But –"  
  
Spock turns away from them then, going back to the incense by his fire-pot. "If you will excuse me, I require time to meditate."  
  
He will be calm, as still as the rocks on Vulcan. He will meditate on the rocks, on the Terran philosophical quandary of the intersection of an immovable object and an unopposable force. Logic will not fail Spock – it never has.  
  
"Bullshit," McCoy says. "You don't need time to meditate. You think you need to toss us messy, irrational humans with our inconvenient _emotions_ out of your room so that you can go back to thinking about whatever the hell it is you think about – higher-order equations or subquantum particles or I don't know what, but whatever it is, it isn't healthy. You've got to talk to Jim."  
  
"I have spoken with him," Spock tells him. It should be obvious, but the doctor is often unaware of the obvious. "I am his First Officer – I speak with him on a daily basis."  
  
"Speak with him about what's happening between the two of you," McCoy says. "Or, so help me god, I'll put you on medical leave until you do. This is fucking unhealthy, Spock. If you think that I can't see that you aren't eating, aren't sleeping – meditation is no real substitute for sleep, not even for your physiology, and you –"  
  
Spock looks down at the incense, and at his hands poised in the air above it. He had once thought that his hands were only meant to touch consoles, to do his duty and nothing more. Nyota had tried to disabuse him of the notion – Leonard McCoy, in his own way, had tried to do the same.   
  
"I do not appreciate your interference in my personal life, Doctor. I am well within the range of acceptable –"  
  
"It isn't your personal life when it's affecting the functioning of this ship," Nyota says. She comes forward, putting a hand on Spock's arm, speaking for the first time in a long time. "The last two mornings on the bridge have been – well, you were there. Spock, when you and Kirk aren't working together..."  
  
Her voice trails off, and Spock brushes her hand away. He has no words for her, for this woman who has meant so much to him, and so he says nothing.   
  
"Please, Spock," she says.   
  
She and McCoy leave when he continues in his silence, and when they are out in the corridor, Spock can hear him muttering about stubborn, stiff-necked hobgoblins. Nyota's higher voice rises to contradict him, and Spock listens to them as they move away.   
  
The sound of their voices dies, and he is alone. The incense that he had lit during his meditation has gone dark and cold. Spock stretches, preparing his muscles for a time of inactivity, and settles down into the meditation that had been interrupted, finding the trails his thoughts had taken as he tried to resolve the problem of the immovable object and unopposable force.  
  
\-------  
  
Out of habit, Spock finds himself at Kirk's door the next night. It is their usual night for chess, but Spock hesitates before requesting entry.   
  
When Jim answers the door, he is dressed casually, his shirt half-open at the neck. Spock remembers the times that he touched that skin, the times that he tasted it. He swallows, hard, and steps inside the room at Kirk's invitation.  
  
"I ... did not know if you would wish to continue our chess games, under the circumstances," he says.  
  
The board is set up, and Spock can see a mug of steaming tea for himself and a tumbler of whiskey for Kirk.   
  
"Yeah," Kirk says. "I didn't think you'd come, but ... well, Bones has been on my case for..." he trails off, and then gestures for Spock to seat himself.   
  
It is like the enactment of an ancient ritual, coming together to play chess with Kirk like this. They have not played often since their physical relationship began.   
  
Spock touches a pawn – Kirk set the board up so that he should take the white pieces and make the first move – and then stops before moving it. "You are not entertaining the ambassador's secretary tonight," he says.   
  
It is a matter of simple observation. Kirk is not wearing cologne, and his sheets are rumpled and his room disorganized – all of the hallmarks of his anticipation of entertaining company are missing. Spock voices his observation out loud, hardly knowing why, and Kirk nods.  
  
"Yeah." He doesn't look bitter about it, but he touches Spock's hand, prompting him to move. "Apparently once Kli-atyl figured out that he wasn't getting any with _you_ , he put the brakes on his secretary doing anything with _me_. She's been so busy writing memos and taking notes these past two days that I haven't seen her at all."  
  
Kirk answers Spock's pawn move with another. They play a quiet game, a passive one. Kirk lets him maneuver their pawns into a closed formation, and Spock takes advantage of it as he often is able to. This is his style of play, not Jim's, and the fact that he did not begin the game with a flashy gambit says more than Spock can read from his face.   
  
"You do not ... regret the loss of your liaison with her?"  
  
He is testing dangerous territory now, and he diverts Kirk's attention with a speculative sacrifice of a knight. If he takes it, the only reward Spock will have is the control of some key central squares – small return for the loss of the material, but in a game like this, it might be enough. It would be enough against another player, but Spock learned to play this way from Kirk, and has not yet mastered the art of it. It is different from the methodical, reasoned play that he is accustomed to.   
  
Jim ignores the knight and leans forward over the board instead. "I don't," he says, touching Spock's hand again. "Spock, I ... I have to say, I regret the loss of my _liaison_ with you, as you would say. I mean ... I miss _you_."  
  
Spock stands, pulling Jim up from the chessboard and away from the knight, abandoned in its peril. "You do not know what you are saying," he says.   
  
"I _do_." Jim is oddly intense, his eyes alight with a fire that Spock has not seen since the day he challenged him on the bridge, the moment when Spock was bending him over a console, choking the life out of him, losing to him.  
  
"If I possess you," Spock says, considering every word before he utters it, "I will possess all of you. _Jim_..."  
  
There are ancient marriage rituals on Vulcan, there are the sacred rituals of Jim's people, the binding together of two lovers in heart and spirit and law. They use none of them, but they come together over the chessboard with a kiss.   
  
"I don't want to see you with the ambassador or anyone else," Jim says. "I never realized..."  
  
It is something that Spock has realized, time and time again, watching Jim go from his arms to the arms of another. He touches Jim now, letting his fingers dig into the soft and tender flesh of Jim's forearms. He holds Jim in place, pinning him there with his superior strength. "You should have realized," he says. "You should have known."  
  
Jim turns his face up to Spock for a kiss, and the last thing that Spock thinks is that he is like a flower, turning to the sun, and his meditations will return to their Terran metaphors now, and he will no longer be alone on Vulcan, the planet that is no more, and he will ... he does touch Jim, and that is enough to banish all images of sand and wind and barrenness.  
  
\-------  
  
Kirk surprises Spock with the idea, in another example of human synthesis and non-linear thinking. Spock is learning to live with it, as he suspects his older self must have done in his world. With his Jim Kirk, perhaps, but this Jim is _his_.  
  
Most assuredly his, and he saunters into Spock's quarters after his shore leave is up, wearing a smile that Spock has learned means trouble. Setting his work aside, he stands and meets Jim half-way.   
  
"I believe I have reason to be concerned, given the frequency with which your current expression has elicited that feeling in the past," he says. "Did you dally with one of the barmaids on Corpus Copernicus?"  
  
Jim kisses him, twining their fingers together and stealing Spock's breath. It has been this way since their first time together, and shows the promise of continuing to be so for the foreseeable future. "Nope," he says. "I got you one better."  
  
Spock raises an eyebrow and Jim elaborates, stripping off his shirt. "Look," he says. "Yours."  
  
There on Jim's shoulderblade is a tattoo done in black ink. Jim shivers when Spock touches it. "Hey," he says. "Aren't you supposed to let it heal before doing that – ohhh."  
  
The skin is apparently quite sensitive still. "You are referring to the older methods of tattoo creation, which used needles and ink. If you went to a reputable tattoo parlor, you would know that –"  
  
"Yeah, yeah," Jim says, batting Spock's hands away. "I know, I just didn't listen. It felt _amazing_."  
  
"It felt amazing to have another man's hands on your skin?" Spock leans close, pressing his body over Jim's, pressing him against the wall. "Tell me."  
  
"No, fuck, he didn't even touch me. He was a professional, all right? He just ... I couldn't stop thinking of _you_ , coming home to you, being marked for you."  
  
Spock traces the lines of calligraphy – Vulcan symbols older than either of them, older than the planet Jim just visited. _If you will be mine, you will be mine completely_ had been Spock's challenge to Jim, and here it is answered, and answered in full.   
  
Every time they come together, he claims Jim with hands and touch, with tongue and taste, with the fullness of being and knowing. With Spock's strength, it is an easy matter to lift Jim bodily and carry him to the bed, pinning him down on it.   
  
"Tell me," he says, putting a hand between Jim's shoulder and the bed beneath it, "do you know what it means?"  
  
"Yes," Jim says, arching into his touch. "Fuck –"  
  
Spock makes short work of his remaining clothes, tossing them aside. There will be time enough to consider them later – to consider the patterns of folds and creases made by his carelessness, his need – to consider the penance and penalty of haste – but now it is time to touch Jim, to hold him, to take him.   
  
As he slicks Jim's skin, preparing him and sliding into him, Spock bites down on his neck. It is hard enough to leave a mark – he will see it on Jim's skin tomorrow, the barmaids on Corpus Copernicus will see it, and the crew will see it. This mark, just as the other, proclaims Jim as his, _claims_ him. Spock eases the hurt with his tongue, laving it until Jim whimpers, arching his back and demanding more.   
  
"Mark me, Spock, do it."  
  
Spock halts his thrusts and holds himself up over Jim, supporting the weight of his body with his arms and waiting. Jim shifts on the bed, restless. "Please..."  
  
"Tell me what my mark says," Spock tells him. "Say it in Vulcan."  
  
Jim pushes back up against him, shifting until he can impale himself on Spock's cock again. "Give it to me, please, I need it, I fucking need you."  
  
"Tell me," Spock says, reaching down to clamp his fingers around Jim's cock. "You won't come until you do."  
  
"If I am yours, I am yours ... completely ... t'hy'la ..." Jim says it in broken Vulcan, in an accent almost beyond comprehension, but it is enough for Spock. He lowers himself down onto Jim's body, until they are pressed skin to skin and can feel the doubled rhythm of their heartbeats – two different places and two different hearts, the one echoing the other.   
  
Jim touches him, fingers on his skin, fingers pulling his hand to Jim's face, to the meld points. Spock is drawn into his mind in spite of himself, seeking out the one thing that he wants, the one thing that he must see. He draws it to Jim's attention and holds it at the forefront there as he fucks him – the feeling of the tattoo, the slight burn of the localized anesthetic, the tingle of the chemicals on his skin.   
  
It burns and Jim moans, clutching Spock's hand, stroking the sensitive spots on his fingers. When they come, they come together and they are wrapped in the memory of the tattoo, burned with the marks that Spock has made upon Jim's skin.


End file.
